Kaleidoscope Kiwi

My interest in collage fabric was peaked when Sophie Standing (then living in Kenya) was scheduled to come to NZ to teach a course. It was horrendously expensive for one day but she is a marvellous tutor and her African animals had always been one of my gotos for inspiration.

The course was a bit different from what I might normally attend as every student was making the same basic format that Sophie had chosen - the kiwi. All the finished projects were quite different with some students adding crotchet and vintage embellishments and some students turning up with printed backgrounds. I had just opted for a colour wash.

The interesting thing was we had to chose one fabric from our stash that we didn’t want to do without and from that we were to chose five fabrics in tones to go with the chosen one. These were then expanded out to 12-20 in gradations to tone in together.

Next came the pattern. We had been asked to bring along a photocopy full size of the kiwi photo provided. This we cut out and then cut into to make sure the eyes on our piece were in the right place. We started with practice eyes because the eyes in any piece are the most important. Once we had our eyes right we used the pattern - cutting further into it as needed to get things in the correct placement. attention was directed to have light colours at the top and darker to the bottom.

Once the collaged pieces were stitched down the fun began with bright coloured machine stitching adding detail and going over the individual pieces to blend as a whole.

This was certainly a departure from my normal comfort zone with the bright colours that I opted to use but I was quite happy with the result

Single Use Plastic

Continuing on from the theme of using teabags as a substrate or art material, this quilt was made from a photo of an old lady who sheltered with me in a tropical downpour in Java. I asked if I could take her photo and she agreed. When she saw her photo she thought she was so ugly. I thought she was just so beautiful with her woven hat and plastic sheet raincoat and so much life and mystery in that face! Not long after this, Mt Merapi erupted and I wondered what happened to my wonderful model and if she managed to escape and continue her life anew.

The images below give a close up of the stitching on the teabags that brought her face to life. Everything used in this art quilt was recycled from the woven hat - remnants of Tamara’s art project, to the background scraps to the old scarf and finally the single use plastic that found a new life